ABSTRACT
The Neolithic is a pivotal and dynamic period of Near Eastern prehistory, being marked by changes in the ways that human beings interacted with their environments and with one another. Bioarchaeologists, in their analyses of human skeletal remains from archaeological settings, have devoted a great deal of attention to explaining examples of reduced mobility among populations in transition—especially the foraging-to-farming transition—because of the largely negative consequences that increased sedentism and population aggregation brought about for human health. This chapter highlights the complex web of factors that would have influenced the mobility patterns of the people of Catalhoyuk. Mobility patterns are greatly influenced by the relationship shared between people and their landscapes—regional, local, physical, and social. The landscape reconstruction that emerged during the first phase of the Catalhoyuk Research Project painted a picture of a dynamic, if predictable, environment characterized by continuous seasonally flooded wetlands throughout the site's Neolithic occupation.
